


All This Time

by izayoi_no_mikoto



Category: Silver Diamond
Genre: First Meetings, Gen, Mistaken Identity, Misunderstandings, Nonnies Made Me Do It
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-09
Updated: 2017-09-09
Packaged: 2019-01-05 15:49:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 516
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12192915
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/izayoi_no_mikoto/pseuds/izayoi_no_mikoto
Summary: First impressions can be deceptive.





	All This Time

When Chigusa opened his eyes, he didn't see the strange clothing, or the slightly different hair color, or even the befuddled expression.  All he saw was that face, and it was the face of his enemy.

_The Prince?!_

Faster than thought, Chigusa moved.  He leapt up from his bed of grass and ivy, his gun in hand, and he grabbed the Prince by the shoulder and shoved him down.  The Prince let out a shout–- _The Prince can speak, has anyone ever heard him speak?_ some part of his mind wondered, but no time, no space for thought, the Prince was _here_ and today, at last, Chigusa would _end_ him.

Chigusa shoved the barrel of his gun right in the Prince's face, so close that not even a Child of God or an Ayame Prince could possibly survive, and then he pulled the trigger.

_Click._

"What?" the Prince yelped, his eyes wide and his face pale.  "What _is_ that?  What are you–-what?!"  This was the voice of the Ayame Prince?  This frantic tumble of confusion and fear and anger?

No time.  No space to think.   _The bullets_ , Chigusa realized dimly.   _I’m out of bullets, my gun is withering–-_

He'd just have to kill the Ayame Prince with his bare hands.

But before Chigusa could strangle him, the Prince moved.  He reached up one hand, but not to attack Chigusa, not to seize the gun and wither it to dust.  Instead the Prince pushed the barrel of the gun away, just a gentle nudge with the back of his hand–-

And the wood let out a gentle pop and started _growing_.

One leaf, two.  Twigs.  Branches.  Growing, sprouting, _alive_.  Scrambling, Chigusa thrust the barrel straight into the soil, and the gun took root and exploded upwards, bark crackling, leaves rustling, limbs reaching out and out and out–-

_It grew._

Chigusa stared, slack-jawed with shock.  He was empty-handed.  His gun was supposed to die, and instead it had become a tree.  A vibrant, beautifully green tree, full of life and vigor.  The stuff of dreams and fairy tales.

Chigusa had never seen anything so incredible.

_It grew_ , he thought again, scarcely able to believe his own eyes.  His entire mind felt numb.   _It grew when he touched it._

And then he looked at the Prince, who looked as confused as Chigusa felt, and then started babbling in that voice that couldn't be the Prince's–-

_Sanome._

This boy wasn't the Prince.  He looked the same, he looked almost exactly the same, but Chigusa could see the differences now that he looked--the hair color so slightly different, those strange clothes, and those facial expressions, so mobile, so varied, so human, so genuine.  The Ayame Prince, with all his cool superiority and his cloak of lies and deception and his soft smile that hid a black soul of monstrosity and destruction, was nothing but a washed-out mimicry in comparison.  This boy was no Ayame Prince; he was a sanome, something different, something else, something _real_ –-

_You_ , Chigusa thought, _you are what I have been looking for all this time._

**Author's Note:**

> (Inspired by the prompt: 100 words of counterfeiting)


End file.
